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The Resilience Alliance
Ecology and Society
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Class Schedule: Week 8, Critiques of Resilience Theory
Like any body of theory, resilience has both its uncritical adherents and its critics. In recent years, some critics have taken up the cause that resilience is another incarnation of status-quo functionalism or of neoliberal economics, either of which can serve political elites in their quest to preserve their power and inhibit meaningful social change and meaningful reforms in our relationship with environment and natural resources. This week we will look at some of these critiques closely, and evaluate them in the context of other material we have read so far and in the context of your own use of resilience theory in your term papers.
Monday, May 20: The critiques below seem to challenge resilience as a concept because it promotes and excuses the status-quo of contemporary neoliberal capitalism. Read the two critiques and by 10:00 a.m please post your evaluation of whether you think these critiques are valid, and why or why not. In class, we will discuss your evaluations, as well as my own.
Wednesday, May 22:
Other critiques maintain that ecology and social relations are separate spheres, and that the application of resilience, which these authors define as an ecological concept, is conservative when applied to social relations. After reading the critique(s) below, by 10:00 a.m please post your evaluation of whether you think these critiques are valid, and why or why not. In class, we will discuss your evaluations, as well as my own.
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